Oiva - Tiiliskivi plate, 15 x 12 cm, light pink

Sami Ruotsalainen is a Finnish designer who graduated with a Master of Arts in ceramic and glass design from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2005. Among his best-known works are the Maku tableware series for Arabia and the Oiva collection for Marimekko, which serves as the base for many of the brand’s iconic patterns. Ruotsalainen is the designer behind Oiva’s strong, clean shapes.

With a long-standing career at Marimekko, Ruotsalainen has also worked as an assistant to designer Kristina Isola. In addition to tableware, his portfolio includes textile design.

Armi Ratia (1912–1979) was a textile artist, the founder of Marimekko and one of the most famous Finnish entrepreneurs. She was the CEO of Marimekko until 1969 and again from 1971 onwards. Ratia studied textile design in Helsinki and graduated in 1935. After graduating, she founded her first enterprise, a weaving mill in Vyborg. In 1939, she had to leave the weaving mill as she moved to Helsinki together with her husband, Viljo Ratia.

Marimekko’s story can be said to have started when Armi Ratia joined Printex, a manufacturer of oilcloths and print fabric owned by her husband, where she began to acquire bold and colourful patterns for printing. Two years later Marimekko was born. In the early days of Marimekko, Ratia sketched clothes and patterns on fabrics herself, but later on got more interested in marketing. She created the vision for Marimekko and found talented artists to implement it.